Call me twisted...

[Vman455]

What gets me is the sense of entitlement we have regarding cheap fuel. I read an article on Bloomberg this morning which quoted several Californians at gas stations saying things like, "It's outrageous!" and, "I don't understand it." Even though this spike is temporary, the long-term trend is obvious: finite natural resource+increasing worldwide demand (especially Asia)=prices go up, and will go up until we run out of the stuff. To be blunt, people like Old Mechanic's daughter who have premised their living arrangements and commutes on cheap gasoline forever will have to make tough decisions about how to restructure their lives in the future; we all will. We will also see the ramifications of this not just in pump prices, but in every other aspect of our economy that depends on oil, from farming and commodities, to food prices at the local grocery store (those products didn't magically appear there, after all--every calorie of food energy in a grocery store represents roughly seven calories of oil energy invested in its production and distribution). There's an argument to be made for high gas prices being bad on an individual level inasmuch as they introduce hardship, but on a societal level they're in our best interest if we respond appropriately and change how we use and think about energy. The writing's on the wall, to borrow an analogy from the Old Testament. The question is: who's reading it?

[Daox]

Excellent post Vman455. The sense of entitlement in the US culture really makes me sick.

[ecomodded]

Years ago when gas jumped from .60 L to 85 cents a liter the morning highway commute traffic slowed to 60 mph from 80mph, it was a sight to see both lanes of traffic going slow, the slow drivers were influencing the fast drivers, gas prices was influencing them all. That lasted for about a month then back to business as usual

[shovel]

If the only thing a human could eat was carrots, what do you think carrots would cost?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Vman455

What gets me is the sense of entitlement we have regarding cheap fuel.

What really bothers me is not the sense of entitlement, but what seems to be an absolute inability to do forward planning for any period longer than the next paycheck (if that - see the rise of "payday loan" businesses, AKA loan sharks).

Let's suppose that there really is lots of oil, and it's some great conspiracy by oil companies, evil liberal treehuggers, the Trilateral Commission, or whoever to keep raising prices. Well, so what? The conspiracy isn't going to blush and sheepishly admit "OK, you caught us, we'll roll back the price to 99 cents/gallon tomorrow." Prices are going to go up. Why not recognize that and prepare for it? But no, gotta spend every dime they make, and as much as they can borrow, too.

[3-Wheeler]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

.....But no, gotta spend every dime they make, and as much as they can borrow, too......

It's called Human Nature.

Seems that there are folks in life who are going to learn the term, "planning ahead" one way or another. They go to a store and think "gosh, if I could only get that, my life would be happy", and so it goes.

I suppose we all have that very same thing in some sort of way or another.

I look at life as a "big experiment" and we're all here to learn stuff.

And as you pointed out, you (and we) are in the planning stages for lowering our fuel consumption. It also appears as though others will take a little longer.

The less I worry about it, the better I feel, since we certainly have the means of getting our cars over 100 mpg in the near future, if not already in the present.

Just my ramblings, Jim.

[darcane]

Originally Posted by Pandaf

Here it was mentioned recently in the papers that for the first time people start to drive less because of gas prices. For years the average annual distance driven per car was around 13.000 km, now it is reducing. However people mostly skip the visits to relatives so the writer of the article got worried over lonely grannies sitting and waiting for (grand)children that do not visit anymore....Sad as that may be....on my daily commute I mostly see cars with only one occupant....Huge potential in cost savings there (personal experience).

A recent article in the NY Times had this graph:
Driving Safety, in Fits and Starts - Graphic - NYTimes.com

Showing car safety (deaths per 100k people) vs miles driven per capita for the USA. Miles per capita have been slowly decreasing since 2004. It's not the only decrease, but it is the only decrease of more than a few years.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by 3-Wheeler

It's called Human Nature.

So that makes me not human. I've long suspected that, but it's nice to have proof :-)

[bestclimb]

Originally Posted by HydroJim

Call me twisted...but I'm pretty happy that gas prices have skyrocketed in California. Even if it's only temporary, maybe it will help open people's eyes

Twisted is not exactly the word I would use for someone who is happy about peoples hardships.

[Daox]

The thing is those hardships are very commonly (not exclusively) brought on by people's incredible lack of foresight and common sense. For those which that is true, I don't have much sympathy. Nothing else seems to matter unless you start draining their wallet.